Custom Covers

As some of you know, I do cover and interior book design. I thought I’d share some of my work from the last year with you. As you can see from these examples (and if you click here, my premade covers), I work closely with the author to not only capture his or her imagination but do it in a way that is beautiful and professional.

Here is a select group of cover designs from the last year.

Clicking the image will take you to Amazon where you can buy a copy and support the author!

On the Edge of a Raindrop‘s cover was designed using one of Sarah Brenytn’s own photos and applying an oil paint filter to the rainy shot to give it the feel of a painting by an artist, maybe like Monet. Our goal was to keep the overall mildly haunting style of the book similar to Sarah’s first book, Hinting at Shadows.

I started working with L.M. Nelson to rework her first and second book covers after she was able to get her books back from her former publisher. We’ve built a great working relationship, and I hope to keep designing covers for her. I did a simple reformat/design close to her original cover for Scrubs, redesigned Sand & Sutures completely, and got to do Beyond the Hardwood and Center Stage from scratch. After finishing that series, we had a great time tackling her first ya fantasy novel The Guardian together.

Every time, I work hard to listen to the author and give you the professional, beautiful cover you are proud to share with the world.

Anthony G. Asher is a young man who grew up loving book about dogs. He loves trapping, raising animals, and ranching. He heard about my design services through a mutual friend, and right away he asked for some very specific things to go into his cover. I did my best to include what he wanted, but we also worked through the fact that not everything we want can fit on a cover. It’s best to focus on just a few, even maybe only one or two, main ideas in your cover. Rex the Police Dog is vibrant and fits the genre!

As with most covers I design, I start with a basic idea from the author–often using their synopsis–to get a launch point. We then work together to adjust the cover to capture the image he or she has in mind. Sometimes authors are SUPER cool and let me run wild!

Jessica Hecket’s artwork usually starts out as a base background; it’s either something she’s painted or a photo manipulation she’s had compiled by her graphic design friend named Leslie.

For the cover to Blue Cloud, I couldn’t make it work with the original format, so we flipped the image and it was magic! Then, because it was a lovely image, I added some great text features (which are an artform unto themselves, if you ask me). Still, something was missing to the thrill and imminent danger feeling in the novel itself, so Jessica asked for lightning. With an increase in the vibrancy, this is the final effect we settled on, and I’m lovin’ it. We worked together to make a good cover great.

And that’s Jes in the images!

The following is a painting that Jessica Hecket did for her story Gideon’s Dragons. Well, it’s half the painting. The rest is on the back of the book cover, but on the front, you can see that it’s beautiful, but something feels missing…

Looking at it, I decided all we needed was some of that beautiful color from the back of the book (left side of the painting) to give the front the energy it was missing, and adjusted the whole painting upwards. It always helps when we have great art to work with!

Some of what I do is complicated and some is fairly simple. Mostly, what I do is satisfying for me, and I hope it is so for all my clients.

V.P. Grey gave me some ideas about the contents of her short fiction compilation and let me have a lot of free reign in her design as well. The atmosphere of the cover gives a hint about what’s inside. Now you should find out what’s hidden inside.

Claire M. Banschbach also gave me the opportunity to tackle the reformatting of her covers for The Rise of Aredor and The Wildcat of Braeton, though I did not design either and only adjusted the font choice on The Rise of Aredor to better match that of Book Two.

Aside from cover design, I also do interior formatting. I’ve been working on standard black and white text interiors as well as the more complicated color illustration books. Here is another area I gain a lot of satisfaction. I love when projects come together and turn out top-notch.

There can be a lot of headaches when it comes to these two areas of design, but I hope that through it all I’m an ally to you authors who’ve given me the opportunity to make your books beautiful!

Currently finishing book I of a fantasy called, “The Sword, the Bow and the Staff” but no cover design yet. I have the font I like for the title, but the actual art work still escapes me. How does one get started enquiring about a book cover?

Oh cool! Congrats, Sha’Tara. 🙂 There’s info here on the blog, up in the menu. Or if you’d rather, you can just email me with any specific questions, using the contact form. I’d love to chat more about your project. 🙂

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Rachael Ritchey is a dreamer who believes in the resilience of the human spirit. She never wants to forget we are not what has happened to us or what we've done. She believes we are deep wells of compassion and strength, and when unleashed, these subtle super powers can change the world, even if only just one person at a time.
Rachael writes with an eye toward exemplifying these attributes. Her clean but real and true-to-self YA fiction reflects these qualities with daring adventure and sweet romance that almost anyone can enjoy. Rachael lives in Spokane, WA with her husband, kids, and their dog named Hashtag.